Page 123 of The Vanishing Place
“What place?” he sniffed.
Dinah just stroked his hair. Maybe she didn’t know where the place was either.
“But I like sharing a room with you,” said Adam.
Dinah smiled. “Me too.”
“I feel wet,” he said, starting to cry again. “I got scared. I thought that…”
Dinah kissed his head. “It’s okay.”
Big sister pulled back the wet duvet and threw it onto the floor, making a mountain with the sheets. Then she lifted his pajama top over his head.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Adam sniffed. “Can you sleep here tonight?”
Dinah peeled the damp pants from his legs and squeezed his hand.
“Our little secret.” She smiled.
2025
That morning akerosene lamp, only a quarter full, and a book had been waiting for her when she woke up. A bloody Bible of all things. Effie had sworn and kicked it under the bed.
Over the past twenty-four hours, Effie had tried shouting out and throwing things at the door, but the voice never returned. She’d searched every inch of the room that she could reach, cursing when the chain pulled taut and the padlock dug into her ankle bone. She’d spent hours in the dark, mapping the shapes and edges of her prison, searching for a source of light or something she could use as a weapon. Anything that might help her. But her efforts had resulted in little more than a child’s crayon and an old rusted fork.
She stood in front of the boarded window, using the lamp for light, and tried to prize the boards loose with her fingers. If she could just force one away slightly, a few millimeters, perhaps she could find something to lever it open. She dug into the wood, her arms shaking, but the tips of her fingers tore and bled, and the rusted nails held tight.
“Fuck.”
Effie slumped back, defeated. She turned off the lamp and sat in the dark, breathless and bleeding, as the minutes passed and thefist in her stomach clenched tighter.Too tight. Effie groaned and leaned forward, curling into a ball, but the pain deepened, getting worse. As she rocked, heat crept through her, burning in her muscles.
“Something’s wrong,” she murmured. But her words bled out into the black air with nothing to catch them, with no one to make them real. “I don’t feel well.”
Effie held her stomach and shouted, her voice thick with anger, “I know you can hear me.”
Then she lurched forward and spewed over the floor. Twice she convulsed and emptied—the second attempt more bile and saliva than anything of substance. Eventually, the cramps eased. Effie wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. Groaning, she lit the lamp and glanced around the room, half knowing what she was looking for.
There.
“You cowardly fucker,” she murmured, the words foul-smelling on her tongue.
The cup of tea. He’d put something in her fucking tea.
Effie grabbed the bed, using it to pull herself up. Holding her stomach, she stumbled around the sour puddle of vomit and lifted the empty cup from the desk. She ran her finger around the inside, the smooth ceramic dusted with something gritty, then she hurled it at the wall.
“Stupid.” She swore. “Stupid.”
As she turned, she noticed a corner of white paper poking out from under the saucer. Her stomach tensed again, and she grabbed the paper. The writing was different from the previous note, the tight block capitals neater and more uniform.
READ THE BIBLE. IT WASN’T A REQUEST.
Effie scrunched the note in her hand and threw it into the vomit.
“Screw you.”
Exhausted, she curled up on the bed. And at some point, sleep took her.
